THE SOUND & THE FURY

If he’s not careful, Vaden Todd Lewis could become this generation’s Guy Lombardo, at least as far as San Antonians are concerned.

Lewis, frontman for the Toadies, has, in recent years, made a curious but welcome habit of dropping into SA in late December to help us ring out the old. In 2003, he brought his band the Burden Brothers (in historical terms, the sandwich meat between the two eras of Toadies bread) to Sunset Station for a New Year’s Eve blowout. In 2005, they came back for a December 29 gig at Jack’s. Last year, the reformed Toadies felt compelled to play two Christmas-week shows at White Rabbit. And this week, they’ll be at Scout Bar on Tuesday, December 30, for the second of two nights at the local club.

When the Toadies disbanded in 2001, they were all but forgotten by the rock-listening masses. Over the next five years, however, the band mysteriously shifted from discarded has-been to mourned legend, and we’re all the better for it. They’ll surely help the Alamo City pound 2008 into submission, and we can only hope they’ll favor us with the ultimate lover-as-lightweight-ditty metaphor, “Song I Hate.”